


Eleven Wolves

by ohsorestless



Category: Original Work
Genre: Childhood Trauma, Enjoy!, Everyone is psychic, F/M, Fantasy, Horror, Psychological Horror, Psychological Trauma, This is my magnum opus, You'll get it as things go along
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-02-23
Updated: 2014-02-24
Packaged: 2018-01-13 13:12:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1227685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohsorestless/pseuds/ohsorestless
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kaylie Mira is a haunted girl. Through her telekinetic abilities and trauma history, she's created eleven tulpas - thoughtforms brought to life - that take the form of eleven wolves, controlling her home and her mind. </p><p>James McCall is her childhood friend, now grown and working as a psych intern, who is determined to save her from herself. Along with sister Marie McCall and New Age guru-in-training Leo Daniels, James and Kaylie face down her personal demons one by one. </p><p>But when they get to the heart of the matter - the Eleventh Wolf and what he means for all of them - will they be able to face him...or survive?</p><p>Rated M for horror elements, references to molestation, and traumatic elements. Be forewarned, this is NOT a pretty story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Photographs

“James, don’t let him do it.”

I squirm around in bed. It’s just a dream. Just a dream. Not real. Not even a memory.

“I’m scared.”

“Don’t be scared. I’ve got you. I’ve got you both.”

I’m holding my sister and our best friend close, trying to protect them. Protect them from what? I can’t remember. It’s all so blurry. I’m so scared. We’re all scared. I can hear them in my head, the two girls, their murmuring thoughts of terror dragging through my mind like claws inside my skull. Their fear is rubbing off on me. I try to shut them out, but Kaylie’s thoughts are so, so loud.

“James? James, you open this door right now!”

_Wake up,_ I tell myself. But I’m not waking.

We all jump. Marie presses against me; Kaylie flattens herself against the wall. The absurdity of it hits me hard. They’re five. I’m six, and by default their protector, being the only boy and being one year older. But what good does that do when you’re only six damn years old, barely able to tie your own shoes? How the hell can you be expected to protect two little girls from _that?_

A wave of rage comes through the door; I clutch my head, and Kaylie screams. We can feel his thoughts and emotions so clearly. He’s never bothered to hide his rage from us. Marie is shaking like a leaf against me, and I hold her tighter. I’m not going to let it happen again.

I shudder and try to keep breathing. _Oh, God, not this dream again. I don’t want to remember._

_There’s nothing to remember,_ I tell myself. _It didn’t happen._

The door flies open. My jaw drops. He’s got a baseball bat. He raises it above his head and Kaylie and Marie scream. I might be screaming too. I can’t tell.

The last thing I’m aware of is the sickening crack as the bat connects with my head. Then dots swim in front of my vision and everything goes black and numb.

Despite all my valiant intentions, it happens again that night.

 

***

I wake up gasping for air, clawing the sheets with my fingernails. I’m covered in a fine sheen of sweat, and despite the chill of November in New York State, I feel like I’m burning up. I push myself up onto my elbows and look around. I focus on what I can see, trying to ground myself, trying to get back to reality. My charcoal-gray overcoat, hanging on the office chair, still damp from yesterday’s rain. My laptop, the circle on the back pulsing blue. Blue. Then gone. Blue. Then gone again. 

My breathing slows and I’m back to the moment. I’m James McCall, twenty-four years old, psych intern on the second floor at Benedictine Hospital in Kingston, NY. I’m not six. I’m not in that house. I’m not called on to protect anyone, though I still see my little sister Marie regularly, and I check on our friend Kaylie from time to time.

I know Marie is okay. She’s working at Starbucks to finance her studies at a local film school. She’s in special effects. She’ll be fine.

It’s Kaylie I think of on these occasions, Kaylie I worry about. Kaylie whose elfin face appears in my mind and, though she’s twenty-three now, she still seems so small.

I groan and sit up, pressing the heels of my hands against my forehead. I’ve got a blinding headache, as I always do after a night like this. These nights are becoming more frequent. I’ve come to live on ibuprofen and coffee. Not a great combination, but you do what you have to do when you’re interning.

A glance at the bedside clock tells me that it’s 4:30am. It’s still dark out, but the birds are singing. Great. Just fucking great. Like I’d be able to get back to sleep anyway.

I drag myself out of bed and take a quick look at myself in the mirror. I’m tall and slim, like my parents were, though I don’t think even my dad hit six-two. My mom was a model, though, nearly five foot eleven, and she gave me some of my height and my blue eyes. The messy-wavy hair, I’ve got no idea where it came from. Some distant relative that nobody remembers. I run a hand through it. _Needs a trim._ I’ll get Marie to cut it. She’s the only one who can hack those messy chunks of hair into something half decent. 

I like to think I’m normally a fairly okay-looking guy, maybe even attractive, but right now I look like shit. Somehow I look thinner than usual. My hair is falling all over the place and I’ve got dark circles under my eyes, so that it looks like I didn’t sleep at all. I barely did; it had to be one in the morning when I finally got to bed. I’d been up late watching yet another strange indie film Marie recommended. Usually those put me straight to sleep, but this one was more, uh, _experimental_ than the others. Those images are gonna be stuck in my brain for a while yet.

I make a pot of coffee, hoping that the caffeine will make me at least _look_ human, even if I don’t feel it. As I’m pouring myself a cup, a thought comes into my mind.

_Coffee. Is that coffee? Dude, tell me it’s coffee._

I roll my eyes and think back to my roommate, who has this habit of mindtalking across the apartment. _Yeah. What are you doing awake at this hour?_

_You’re the one who made the coffee. You know I can smell it from a mile away._

_In your sleep,_ evidently, I think with a chuckle.

“Damn right.”

I glance up, and there he is, Leo, my roommate, in all his rumpled glory. I’m sort of skinny and slender, but Leo is built like - well, kind of like a lion. Six foot four, big, broad shoulders, slight pot belly. He has longish, wavy, dirty-blond hair that he usually pulls into a ponytail, but when he’s sleeping, he leaves it loose around his shoulders - and inevitably, when he wakes up, it looks like a mane. Sometimes I think he’s doing it on purpose. I wouldn’t put it past him. 

He staggers out of his room in just boxers, a sheet wrapped around his shoulders, and he kind of looks like a homeless guy because the sheet is old and stained and he’s got a ton of blond stubble going on. (So much for Cool Macho Man Leo. Right now he looks like “I Need Some Money For Crack” Guy On The Corner.) Oh, and he’s hung over. On a Thursday. Typical. 

He shuffles past me and pours himself a cup of coffee. “Mmm,” he says. “Thanks.”

“I woke you up at 4:30. I can’t imagine you’re thanking me for _that._ ”

“Eh, I don’t care. Just as long as I get coffee.” He gulps down what looks like half the mug and sighs. “Awesome java. You working today?”

“It’s a Thursday. So yeah, I’m working.”

“Oh.” Leo frowns. “Thursday? Yeah, I guess it is Thursday. Hmm.” He continues sipping as if he’s going to die if he doesn’t get some caffeine into his veins. Leo has often said “there’s too much blood in my caffeine system.” I knew guys in college who said the same of their “alcohol system.” Leo is a coffeeholic, I’m sure. Are there meetings for that? Coffee Anonymous? Caffeine Anonymous? Come to think of it, considering how hung over he looks, maybe he should go to some other meetings, too.

“James?”

I look up and shake myself out of my thoughts. “What did you say?”

“I said you look like shit.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“No, man, I mean…shouldn’t you maybe see a sleep specialist? Get on some pills? You get three hours a night these days. You can’t live on that.”

“Leo, not everyone gets up for coffee and then goes back to sleep until one p.m. like you. That’s not normal either.”

He rolls his eyes, exasperated, and leans back against the counter. “I’m just saying, maybe you should see someone. Don’t think I don’t hear you screaming in your thoughts every night.”

Shit. Did he hear that? Of course he did. Suddenly the memory hits me again: Kaylie and Marie screaming in my head. I squeeze my eyes shut. _Nothing to remember. Nothing happened._  

It’s _not_ a memory. Just a bad dream. 

A really, really vivid recurring dream. 

Yeah.

“I’m fine,” I mutter, heading back to my room.

_Get some sleep,_ Leo thinks to me. 

_Yeah. Whatever._

_***_

I wander into work at Benedictine in a daze. The three cups of coffee back at the apartment aren’t doing shit for me; I still feel like I’m sleepwalking. Caffeine, however wonderful it may be, is really no substitute for the sleep I missed last night with all those flashbacks.

No. Nightmares. Not flashbacks. Can’t flash back to something that never happened.

In the elevator on my way to the second floor, I look up and catch sight of a hollow-cheeked, gaunt man about my age. He looks like a ghost - a familiar one. For a moment, fear runs through me: a twist in my gut, a chill down my spine. Where have I seen him before? _Who is he?_ There’s a memory tugging at the back of my mind. Someone I used to know. Someone close to me. Familiar, but not in a good way. Almost got it…

…No. Nothing.

And the ghoulish man? Nothing more than my own reflection. Jesus. If I’m scaring _myself_ , imagine how the other interns and doctors are going to react.

I hang up my overcoat in the break room and get a couple of weird looks. Xandra, a pretty African-American intern I did some of my college classes with, shakes her head at me. “You look like absolute shit,” she says. “You sure you don’t want to call in sick today?”

“I’m not sick,” I say simply. “Just didn’t sleep enough.”

She pauses. “You having those dreams again?”

I glare at her. “What dreams?”

“Whoa. Down, boy,” she says, holding up her hands. “I didn’t mean anything by it. Just…you’ve mentioned it before.”

Oh. I’d forgotten. “Crap. Sorry, Xan. Yeah…yeah, just bad dreams.”

“Well, you ever want to talk, I’m here. You know that.” She pins on her name badge and looks at mine. “…Might want to check your tag.”

I look down. I’m wearing Amanda’s tag. I look up at Xandra, and she starts giggling. Then I’m laughing too. “I’m too tired for this,” I say.

“I’ll vouch for you if you want to tell Dr. Lorrizzo you’re not feeling well.”

I shake my head, choking down the last of the laughter, and pin on the correct badge. “No, I’ve gotta get the hours. I’ll be fine.”

“Okay. If you need a nap, we can always Thorazine you.”

I start laughing again and God, it feels good to just forget the stress of last night and laugh with a friend, even if it’s over nothing. Xandra’s “good people,” as they say; she knows how to calm you down, cheer you up, whatever you need. “I might actually take you up on that,” I say.

“Good, because you kind of look like a schizo off his meds who got picked up off the streets in the city.”

“God, is it that bad?”

She raises her eyebrows and nods at me. “I’m telling you, if you want to go early…as far as the supes are concerned, I saw you over the weekend and you had the worst stomach flu ever.”

“What are people going to think about _that?_ ” I ask her slyly. “What exactly were we _doing_ over the weekend?”

Xan rolls her eyes. “Sitting in a library studying the DSM-IV.”

“Right. That’s what they’ll think. Exactly.”

“Yeah, because you _totally_ have that playboy rep,” she retorts, matching my sarcasm and adding some of her own. “James McCall, every inch the ladies’ man. Did I mention you look like shit?”

“You might have said something.” It hurts a little, the sarcastic “playboy” comment; Xandra knows me better than anyone, and she knows I haven’t been on a date since…well, since we were in college. Which is really, really sad. Not sad like tragic - sad like _completely pitiful._ I’m twenty-four and I haven’t dated in eight months. Then again, if my reflection in the elevator is anything to go by, maybe it’s kinder to the women of the world if I’m _not_ dating them. Don’t want to scare some girl into an early grave. Or into the psych unit where I work.

Xandra looks at the clock. “Time to punch in. See you on the floor. And if you hear me call a Code Six, that means I’ve decided you really do need a Thorazine nap. Come running.”

“I’ll be looking forward to it.”  
  


***

It’s not an eventful day, which is a mercy - I don’t think I could have handled a Code Six (patient freaking out) or even a Code Adam (“we’ve got a runner!”) - or, God forbid, a Code Blue (someone’s dead, or at least has no vitals). Despite all Xandra’s threats, she doesn’t call Code Six once, or try to come at me with a needle. It’s all in fun; we’d be thrown out in minutes if we tried to Thorazine each other. Patients, yeah, when it’s necessary. But if interns started jabbing each other with needles full of powerful tranquilizers…well, let’s just say there would be a _lot_ of paperwork. _Termination_ paperwork.

The last couple hours of my shift are incredibly long. I feel like I’m going to pass out on my feet. Xandra brings me cup after cup of coffee, and offers to sneak in a Red Bull from her car at one point, but I decline. After seeing one too many people come in psychotic from drinking too many energy drinks, I’ve kind of avoided those things. Okay, granted, those people were bipolar or schizophrenic to begin with, but I err on the side of caution.

Hmm. Maybe erring on the side of caution in most things has something to do with the no dates for eight months.

“Go home,” Xandra says at 3:35.

“I’m here until 4.”

She shoves me lightly. “ _Go. Home._ I talked to Riz.” (Xandra is the only person in the world who can call our supervisor, Dr. Lorrizzo, by that name. Probably because he doesn’t know how to make her stop _._ Xan has that effect on people, even her elders and superiors.) “He said you look like shit,” she adds cheerfully.

“Great. I’m glad there’s a clear consensus on that point.”

“Just get some rest.” Her expression softens as she rests a hand on my shoulder. “I really hope you get these dreams figured out, James.”

“I’m fine,” I say, shrugging her hand off. “Just gotta get some sleep. Probably eating too much junk food before bed.”

“Roommate living on pizza again?”

“I don’t think Leo eats _anything_ that _didn’t_ come from a takeout menu.”

“So _you’re_ living on pizza too.”

“And Chinese. And Thai sometimes.” As if that makes it any better.

“Try eating a salad or some fruit for dinner, with a little bit of carbs on the side. You’ll sleep better.”

I sigh. At this point, I’m willing to try anything. “Fine. I’ll give it a shot.”

Just as I’m about to leave, the nurse at the desk waves me over. “James, you’ve got a call on line 2,” she says.

I groan. “Who is it?” I’m hoping and praying it’s something I can just blow off. _Please, God, I just want to_ ** _go home._**

“A girl named Marie. She says she’s your sister. …It sounds urgent, James. She’s pretty torn up.”

I wish I could say that I’m overcome by concern for Marie and immediately forget about my awful day (and previous night), but really, all I can think is _God, Marie, what is it this time?_ “I’ll take it in the break room,” I say with a sigh.

A moment later I pick up the break room phone and press the keys for line 2. “Marie?”

“James?” She sounds distraught, and okay, _now_ I forget about my awful day. It’s not “my boyfriend broke up with me” or “I’m having a bad hair day” or “I flunked my midterm.” I can tell from her tone that this time, it’s an actual issue. “James, uh, I need to talk to you.”

“What’s going on?”

“It’s Kaylie.” I can hear the tension in the pause. “She won’t come out of the house.”

“Well, that’s nothing new.”

And it isn’t. Kaylie, our childhood best friend and sort-of-adopted little sister, has been housebound for years now. Marie brings her food and necessities. She lives in our old childhood home in the Rondout - our parents moved to Florida a year and a half ago - and it seems that as long as we don’t drag her out of the house, she’s okay. 

But I can tell from Marie’s voice that right now, Kaylie is anything but “okay.”

“James, she won’t let me in. She won’t even come out onto the porch. She looks like…” My little sister’s voice is breaking, and it kills me to hear her like this. “She looks like she’s dying, James. I don’t think she’s eating or sleeping, and I am damn sure she’s not taking her pills.”

“Okay. Okay, I’ll go over and see her.”

“No, James, she said she didn’t want you involved.”

That makes me a little mad, maybe because not twenty-four hours ago, I was locked in a dream (not a memory, definitely not a memory) where I was protecting Kaylie from…someone. The face is never clear in the dreams. “What do you mean, she doesn’t want me involved?”

“James…she just doesn’t want anyone to bother with her. You know how she is.”

I sigh. Yeah, I know how Kaylie is. She’s so sure that she’s completely worthless that she tries to keep everyone away, saying that she’s “not worth you wasting your time on me.” Makes me think of “Waste of Paint” by Bright Eyes. Sad song. Sadder girl.

“Look, I’ll go over and see what’s going on. She’ll listen to me.”

“James…you know she won’t.” Before I can respond to that comment, Marie makes a different request. “Just come over to my place. I need to show you something.” 

“Okay. Fine.” I yawn.

“…You’re not getting any sleep either. Are you?”

“How did you know?”

“You’re yawning. And you sound tired as hell.” She sighs. “I’m tired too, James, but you need to see this.”

“Okay. Okay, I’ll be over in fifteen.”

“Thanks, big brother.”

“No problem, hon.”

I hang up the phone and let my shoulders sag. _Why_ this all had to happen on the same day, I’ll never know. But it’s happening, and there’s not a damn thing I can do about it.

 

***

Pulling on my coat, I head down the stairs and out into the rainy Kingston day. Rain in New York is not like rain anywhere else in the country. It’s aggressive. I swear it falls harder, pelting the ground rather than just splattering it, like bullets of water rather than droplets. It makes you squint and hunch to avoid getting it in your eyes. It’s sooty and I wouldn’t be surprised if you told me it’s acidic, too. 

Yeah. Welcome to New York.

It takes two tries to get my car to start, and when the engine finally turns over, I mutter a thank-you to whatever deity looks over ancient cars. Owning a classic Impala sounded cool at first, but lately the reality’s setting in that machinery from the seventies doesn’t run as well as the stuff that’s just off the assembly line. It’s great machinery, yes, but nothing lasts forever, especially mechanical stuff. As I pull out onto the main roads, I wonder if I should upgrade. 

Then a girl in an oldschool Mustang pulls up beside me, honks, points at my car, and shoots me a thumbs-up and a grin. 

Hmm. Okay, definitely keeping the car.

I pull up to Marie’s apartment building and park next to her red Honda. She’s on the balcony and as I walk up to the stairs, she waves and sends me a thought. _Sorry to bother you._

_It’s okay,_ I tell her. 

_You look like shit._

I roll my eyes. _Yeah, that’s the general consensus._

She meets me in the hallway, and I hug her on impulse. She just looks so stressed out. “Thanks for coming,” she says aloud.

“No problem.” I pause. “But there _is_ a problem, isn’t there.”

Marie looks away and nods. “Yeah. Come on in.”

Marie’s apartment looks exactly as it should, I guess, considering that she’s a 22-year-old college girl. It’s a mess of pink, purple, and cheesy flower décor from Target. There are still boy band posters, though supposedly they’re those rock-emo bands now, and the sofa is a very loud pink and cream paisley. I cringe at it. I hate that sofa. 

Of course, she makes me sit on it.

“So what’s got you all torn up?” I ask. “It’s not just Kaylie, is it?”

“Well, it’s Kaylie. But…not just her.” Marie leans on the counter. “God, I feel like _I’m_ going crazy.”

“Why?” 

“It’s just…well, you take a look at it. Maybe you can make more sense of it than me.” She sighs and hands me a manila envelope. “I guess I’m just hoping you’ll reach different conclusions than I did.”

I shoot her a weird look and open the envelope. Photos spill out - 8x10” glossies, prints made at home in a darkroom. I can tell they were taken with a film camera, a rarity these days, and one of Kaylie’s hobbies. She likes old-fashioned stuff; back when she was still going out into the world, she’d frequent thrift stores and pawn shops and purchase a whole lot of junk. Well, stuff that to anyone else would be junk. Kaylie always managed to repair her rescued items. The last time I was in her room, she had an antique typewriter (that actually worked), an ancient rotary phone (which she actually used), and countless photographs from the 1900’s. Maybe older. 

Then again, the last time I was in Kaylie’s room was when I was eighteen. God only knows what she’s added to the collection in the past six years.

The photographs are confusing. They’re just shots of the various rooms in our childhood home; none of them have been framed or set up very artistically, but they look like there was something over the camera lens - some kind of film or paper or something. 

“Filters,” Marie says, reading my thoughts. “She said she’d built a special filter for it.”

“Doesn’t seem to enhance the image quality much.” No kidding. I can barely see a thing in the photos.

“That’s not what the filter’s for,” Marie tells me quietly.

And then I see it. In a photo of the kitchen, taken sometime in the late afternoon or early evening. 

There’s something in the shadows.

“What the hell…?” I turn the photo this way and that. Yeah, there’s definitely something there. It almost looks like a double exposure, except that it’s so dim. In the corner, in the shadow by the trash can, is some kind of animal. I can see the inhuman eyes, glinting red, and the outline of a muzzle and pointed ears. “Is this a dog?”

Marie shrugs. “Just tell me what you see.”

I look through the photos. In every one, there’s at least one of these…creatures. As I see more of them, I begin to get a sense of scale, and it shocks me. These things - if they’re real, they’re _huge._ Bigger even than real wolves, maybe ten feet from nose to tip of tail, and at least three and a half feet at the shoulder. There’s something sinister about them. They’re all just staring at the camera - staring at Kaylie, I guess - with those soulless red eyes. In one photo I catch a glimpse of huge, clawed paws; in another, what looks like fangs a few inches below the eyes. Big fangs. 

“Marie…what the hell is this?”

I can tell she’s trying so, so hard not to fall apart in front of me, but her hands are visibly shaking, and her body language is all fear, her knees brought up to her chest and her arms wrapped tightly around them. She rests her head on her knees, hiding half her face behind her arm. “Just look at them,” she murmurs. “Tell me what you see.”

“Well, there’s…I don’t know. Animals.” I stare at the photos, spread out on the coffee table in front of me. “Except I don’t know any animal that looks like that. They’re as big as bears, but there’s something canine or lupine about them. And…God, they’re _staring_ at her.”

“Yeah.” Marie folds her arms and takes a deep breath. “That’s what I saw. I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t losing my damn mind.”

“They’ve _got_ to be fake.” I shake my head. “There’s no way these are real. I mean, what would she be photographing? There’s no animal like this. Must have been edited in Photoshop or something.”

Marie shakes her head slowly. “James, I’m a film student,” she says seriously. “I know fakes, and I know Photoshop. That’s half my damn classes. This is real film, and it hasn’t been touched with a computer.”

“Then it’s just some really good exposure tricks. You know what a genius Kaylie was with her darkroom when we were kids.”

Marie fixes her gaze on me. “ _I’m_ pretty good with a darkroom, too,” she says, her voice deadly soft. “And I’ve never seen anything like this. I can’t even begin to think how she’d do it.” She pauses and pulls out another, smaller envelope. “And…there’s another.”

I reach out my hand, but Marie snatches it away. “Marie? Do you want me to look or not?”

She bites her lip. “You have to promise me you’re going to take this seriously.”

“Marie, I _am_ taking it seriously. I am seriously _pissed_ at Kaylie for pranking us so bad. She should know better. She knows we worry, she knows how hard you work to take care of her. She has no business doing this.”

“James, I don’t think this is a prank.”

“Well, what else could it _be?_ ”

“Don’t you believe there are…spirits? Things we don’t understand?” Before I can retort, she holds up a hand. “Just…just listen to me, okay? Look. You know there are things that science can’t explain.”

“Well - ”

“Can you explain consciousness? Dreams? Can you really tell me how electrical and chemical signals in a lump of flesh translate to a thinking, living, _sentient_ human being?”

“That’s not fair, Marie. And it has nothing to do with this.”

“James…” She sighs. “Fine. Fine. Think what you want. But take a look at this.” 

She hands me the envelope, and I open it. I recognize it immediately: the antique typewriter at the far side of the room, the rotary phone on a bedside table to the right - it’s a photo taken from near the head of Kaylie’s bed in her old bedroom. Suddenly my whole body goes cold and shivers run all the way from the nape of my neck to my wrists. I feel like I just had the wind knocked out of me.

“Fuck,” I mutter.

At the foot of the bed, in the corners, in the doorway, are eight or ten of the creatures, much clearer than in the other photos. They’re all staring straight at the camera. And front and center is another figure, another set of eyes. Like the eyes of the wolfish monsters, they are empty and soulless and bright red.

But _these_ eyes - and the body they’re framed by - are also undeniably human.

 


	2. Floorboards and Fur

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> James and Marie pay a visit to Kaylie, and it becomes clear just how bad things are.

Marie and I sit in silence for a long time after that. No words or thoughts are exchanged; we’re just there. I stare at the picture until I can’t stand it anymore, then toss it on the coffee table with the others.

“This can’t be real,” I mutter.

“James, whether it’s real or not…you have to admit that something’s going on. Even if Kaylie is faking the photos, she’d have to put a hell of a lot of work in to fake them. There has to be some reason behind it. And if they’re real…”

“They can’t be.”

“James. They’re real to _her,_ ” Marie points out.

“A lot of things are real to Kaylie. Whatever keeps her in the house, that’s real to her. Just like the voices my patients hear are real to them. The cameras and wiretaps are real to a paranoid schizophrenic, and the germs are real to an OCD person.” I lean back and run a hand through my messy hair. “Just because they’re real to her doesn’t mean they hold any real-life significance.”

“She’s suffering.” Marie shakes her head, looking away. “If you’d been there when I was at her house…She wouldn’t even come to the door, but I could feel her pain from the doorway. Kaylie’s _hurting_. Don’t you _dare_ try to tell me you don’t care.”

“I do care. I just don’t want to get lost in her fantasy.”

Marie is silent for a moment. She knows I have a point. As an intern at a psych hospital, I’ve learned not to get too involved with any one case. You can easily get lost in another person’s psychosis - even if you don’t believe the delusions, you can get wrapped up in it.

“But she’s not a patient.”

I look up at my sister. “Hm?”

“She’s not a patient. Kaylie’s our _friend_. We’ve known her our whole lives.” Marie gets up and walks across the room to a table with framed photos. She picks one up and hands it to me. 

I take the photo and stare at it. It’s the three of us as kids, maybe six or seven years old. We’re finger-painting in the backyard. I’m laughing as Kaylie presses a paint-covered hand to my cheek. I can feel a lump in my throat rising. _We were kids once. We were_ innocent _once._

A strange thought enters my mind:

_No, we weren’t._

I shake it off and look up at Marie. “Okay,” I say, resigned. “Saturday. Let’s go Saturday.”

“I don’t think it can wait until Saturday.”

“Tomorrow, then. After work.”

She looks at me hard. “Tomorrow morning. Tell them it’s a family emergency. It won’t be a lie.”

I hesitate, then nod grimly. “Fine.” 

I get up and look out the window. The New York rain is still pouring down, pelting everything outside so hard. The clouds, scudding across the sky and obscuring any source of light, make the afternoon prematurely dark. There’s a sense of not just gloom, but apprehension - as if something bad is going to happen.

I realize that, if Marie’s suspicions are right, back in that old house on the other side of town, something bad is already happening.

“Tomorrow morning,” I agree.

 

***

Mercifully, I have no dreams that night, but I still don’t sleep more than five hours. I get up at six - the latest I’ve slept in a while - and find Leo making coffee.

“You want to tell me what’s going on?” he asks as he puts a seventh scoop of coffee in. _Damn,_ man. This stuff is going to taste like battery acid. Just how he likes it.

“Just family stuff.”

“Your sister?”

“No, uh, someone else.”

He looks at one of the photos I’d hung on the wall. “The blonde girl? The one in your pictures?” He looks at it thoughtfully. “She’s cute.”

“Yeah. Family friend.” I stare at the coffeemaker. Drip. Drip. Drip. Sometimes I’m tempted to just buy instant, but on the few occasions that I have, Leo has thrown fits. He’s a connoisseur. A connoisseur who makes coffee as strong as battery acid, yes, but still, he won’t touch instant.

“You two close?”

“Used to be.” I pause. “A long time ago.”

Leo is silent for a long moment. I rarely see him this serious. He looks up at me, his striking blue eyes kind with concern. “Is she gonna be okay?”

I shrug. “Hard to say. She’s been…sick for a long time. I don’t really know what’s going on.” I check my watch. “I’m meeting my sister in a couple hours to go see her.” 

He nods and, as he passes me, rests a hand on my shoulder. “It’s gonna be all right. Just hang in there. …If anyone can help her, I think it’s you.”

I stare at him as he walks into his room. “Where did _that_ come from?”

He glances back.

“Just a feeling,” he says.

 

***

 

Marie and I meet at her place. She’s got the photos - I recognize the manila folder, addressed with Kaylie’s neat script. She looks at me and takes a deep breath. “Ready?”

I look away. “As ready as I’ll ever be.”

We take Marie’s car because it tends to handle bad weather better. She drives more carefully than me, and I get tense, wishing she’d hurry up. I just want this to be over with. It’s a terrible attitude to have when you’re trying to help someone - just wanting it to be done already - but I can’t help it. I’m tired, I’m sleep-deprived, I’m missing work when I really need to pick up hours, and I’m stressed as all hell. Yeah, I really can’t wait for this to be over and done with.

“Can you…”

“I’m not going to drive over forty,” Marie says firmly. “It was below freezing last night. There might be ice still.”

“Fine,” I grumble. 

We cross the bridge into Uptown, the older part of Kingston, and I stare out the window, lost in memories. These were the streets I grew up riding my bike on; there’s the alley where we took spray paint and graffiti’d the walls once. It’s been long since painted over, but I still remember it. We were kids. 

_But we weren’t innocent._

Where the hell does that thought come from? It keeps coming back to me: _We weren’t innocent._ I don’t know what it means. It’s not like we lived through anything horrible. Our lives were pretty decent. Dad was a successful accountant, and Mom made our house a home. We never wanted for anything, and Marie and I both went to college. But there’s something tugging at the back of my mind.

_We were never innocent._

As we pull into the old neighborhood, Marie smiles sadly. “A lot of these houses have been renovated,” she says wistfully. “I wish they’d kept them how they were. All these old Victorians, they were a part of this town’s history.”

“Well, times change. New people move in. And remember, our house was pretty much falling apart sometimes.”

“It wasn’t. Just kind of creaky.”

“Yeah.” She turns onto our street, and I crane my neck to see if I can spot our childhood home. “Have you two done any work on it since the last time I was there?”

Marie shakes her head. “No, nothing. I don’t think Kaylie wants a single thing changed. It’s like that house is frozen in time.”

Frozen in time. Stuck in another world. 

Like Kaylie. 

Marie parks in the driveway and I look up at the old house. It looks…sad. There’s an intense melancholy around it. It’s a big old Victorian with white siding and pillars framing the front door. It looks opulent, but worn down. Ivy has started to creep up the sides of the house, and the front yard is totally overgrown. Small wonder; from what Marie has told me, I don’t think Kaylie even comes out to the porch anymore, let alone down the steps to take care of the weeds.

“James? Are you coming?”

Marie is standing outside the car staring at me. I quickly unbuckle my seatbelt and get out. I take one last look at the house. 

“Last chance to back out,” Marie says quietly.

I shake my head. “I’m coming.”

As we walk up the steps, the wind suddenly picks up and whips rain into our faces. I squint my eyes and hurry up the steps. The porch creaks under our feet. It hits me then that this house has barely changed in my whole lifetime. Frozen in time. All that history. All those memories.

We were never innocent.

I shake myself and knock on the door.

There’s nothing for several minutes. Marie rings the doorbell and calls out “Kaylie? Kay, it’s us!” 

More silence. Then a series of clicks. I frown. There’s a _lot_ of clicks. I didn’t remember that door having more than the deadbolt before. 

Finally the door swings open. And there she is.

Kaylie’s hair has grown out. The last time I saw her, it was a cute bob; now it’s long and straggly, hanging past her shoulders. It looks like it hasn’t been washed, and a few locks might actually be matted into almost-dreads. She’s wearing a ragged gray knit sweater that’s unraveling on the right sleeve, and jeans that have seen better days. Her feet are bare.

But it’s Kaylie’s face that freezes me to the spot. She looks haunted. Her cheeks are gaunt and her skin is pale. She _really_ hasn’t been outside for a long time. Even her lips are nearly white. And those eyes. Kaylie’s brown eyes, the eyes I remember being warm with laughter or soft with kindness, are now little more than dead irises in dark sockets. The word _damaged_ passes through my mind. And then the word _broken._

“Hi, Kaylie,” Marie says. I glance over at my sister; she seems totally unfazed. Just how long has Kaylie looked like this?

Marie shoots me the briefest glance and answers in my mind: _A long time, James._ I’m a little surprised; I knew my psychic shields were down from all the stress and lack of sleep, and my thoughts were more or less an open book, but most people still wouldn’t pick up on private thoughts that quickly. Then again, Kaylie and Marie and I used to share everything. We might not be as close anymore, but the connection remains. 

“Hi Marie,” Kaylie whispers.  
“We came to check on you,” I add. “Long time no see.”

She swallows and nods at me. “Hi James.”

Silence. Marie fidgets. “So, can we come in?”

Kaylie looks back, surveying the foyer. I wonder what she’s seeing. Are those wolflike creatures in there? Are they watching her? 

Are they watching _us?_  

A shiver runs down my spine.

“No,” Kaylie finally decides.

“Well…Kay, we just want to talk,” Marie says gently. She cautiously holds up the manila envelope. “I got your package. I wanted to ask some questions.”

Kaylie slumps against the door frame and closes her eyes. _“Please,_ ” she says, voice full of anguish. “Forget about them. Just forget it. I shouldn’t have sent them.” What she says next is so quiet I can barely make it out: “He told me not to.”

“Who - ?” I start to ask.

Marie cuts me off with a stern look. “Kaylie, just let us come in for a minute,” she says. “There’s no harm in that, is there? Just a few minutes. Just to talk.”

She bites her lip. “…Okay. Just a few minutes.”

“Of course. We won’t be here long.”

Kaylie reluctantly turns away and pads back into the house, leaving the door open. Marie looks up at me.

_Follow my lead,_ she thinks. _Don’t push her._

I nod my agreement. _She looks so weak, Marie. Please tell me she hasn’t been like this all…all these years?_

Marie doesn’t answer. She just follows Kaylie inside.

The foyer is dusty and looks like it hasn’t been used much. In the light fixture, only one bulb is on; the others seem to have burned out. It’s an old-fashioned incandescent bulb, and it sets a dim yellow cast across the room. When I close the door behind me, it flickers twice, then holds steady.

“Make yourselves at home,” Kaylie mutters, a touch of sarcasm in her voice, as she collapses into the big easy chair. The chair dwarfs her, and I realize that she’s gotten awfully thin. If it weren’t for the lines of worry on her face, and the world-weary look in her eyes, she’d look about fourteen years old.

“So, Kaylie, how are you doing?” Marie asks.

Kaylie gives her a look. “Fine,” she says curtly.

“Oh. Okay.” Marie lets out a long breath and opens the manila envelope. She holds up one of the photographs. “What’s in this picture, Kay?”

Our “little sister” rolls her eyes. “The damn kitchen, ‘Rie.”

“Kaylie.” Marie looks hard at her. “The thing in the corner. Red eyes. Pointed ears. What is it?”

Kaylie isn’t looking at either one of us. I’m not sure she’s looking at _anything._ She squirms around in her chair, eyes downcast, staring into space. A moment of silence stretches out into a full half minute.

“Kaylie?”

“It’s nothing. Probably just an issue with the film or the developer. You know how fickle darkrooms are.”

“Kaylie, there’s the same thing in all the pictures.” Marie flips through them. “One here. Two here. Four in this one. And then…” She pulls out that last photo, the one with the not-animal, not-human staring down at Kaylie from the foot of her bed. “I counted ten.”

“Eleven,” she whispers.

“Well, ten plus this…Kaylie, it looks like a person. I don’t know what else to call it.”

Kaylie whispers something inaudible. Marie looks at me - _did you catch that? - no, I didn’t_ \- and then turns to Kaylie. “What did you say?”

“Eleven Wolves.”

I don’t know what the phrase means, but I tense as soon as I hear it. There is something in the way that Kaylie says it that gives it great significance, and I wonder what it means to her. More than anything, I wish I could pick her brain and just look in and find out - but even if that wasn’t a social taboo, it wouldn’t be possible. Kaylie is incredibly bright and awfully good at shielding her thoughts from others.

“What’s ‘eleven wolves?’” Marie asks cautiously. 

“The wolves. There are eleven. Eleven Wolves.” Kaylie’s eyes are wide and intense, though she’s still not looking at us. She curls one hand under her chin and balls the other into a fist around some of her sweater. “They live here. They talk to me. They…” She swallows. “They own this house now.”

“Kaylie, that’s not true. James and I own this house. And it’s _your_ house, too, really more than it is ours.”

“Not legally. I don’t mean it like that.” Kaylie takes a shaking breath. “They own it…in a bigger way.”

I can’t help but speak up. “Where did they come from?”

“Don’t know. I think they’ve been here all along. They started…maybe a year ago, they started to come out.” 

A year ago. When Kaylie stopped leaving the house altogether.

Kaylie is gradually scrunching herself up into a ball, moving her legs up against her chest. “They came out of the woodwork, almost - from the rooms I don’t use. The basement, the attic…the master bedroom.” There’s a shake in her voice when she says it. “They came out and they started walking around.”

“Are you the only one who can see them?” I continue.

“I guess so. Even _I_ couldn’t see them at first.” She looks up at me and fixes that intense, dark gaze on me. Those hollow eyes hold so much pent-up emotion. So much pain, and so much fear. “I saw them in the mirrors first. I’d look around and - nothing there. Then I started to see them in the shadows. Now…” She looks away again. “I just see them.”

“Do they threaten you?”

She hesitates. “…No. Not really. They just watch.” Long pause. “And they won’t let me out of the house.”

“What do you mean?” Marie asks.

“They get between me and the door,” Kaylie explains simply. “They stand there. Bare their teeth. Snarl. They scare me back inside. That’s why I don’t go out.”

“But, if they’re not real - ” I protest.

“They _are_ real,” Kaylie tells me emphatically.

“Okay…well, do you think they could hurt you?”

She nods slowly.

That hits me right in the chest. Suddenly, my big-brotherly protective instincts are forefront in my mind. “So we’ll get rid of them,” I say firmly.

Kaylie laughs a hollow, humorless laugh and shakes her head. “James, you can’t even _see_ the damn things. What the hell are _you_ gonna do?”

“I - I don’t know. Something.” I stand up, unconsciously balling my hands into fists. “I’ll figure something out.”

“Sure. Sneak in some tranquilizers and shoot them with a blowgun,” Kaylie suggests sarcastically. “James, there’s not a damn thing you can do, so stop playing the hero.”

“There has to be _something_ I can do.” I didn’t mean for it to come out so soft, so broken, but my voice seems to have left me, along with my courage and determination. I’m beginning to feel as lost as Kaylie looks.

She shakes her head. “No.” She gets up. “You should go. Both of you. Now.”

“Kaylie, please, just tell us what to do,” Marie begs. “Tell us what we can do to help you. We - I can’t leave you like this.”

“I _am_ telling you what to do. And leaving me here is the best thing you can do.” She gets up and waves us towards the door. “Go, go.”

“Kaylie, I am not going to give up on this,” I say, even as Marie tugs me away. “I’m not going to stop until I figure out how to help you.”

Kaylie turns away. “Just get out of my house, thanks.”

It hurts. It hurts, because part of me is still that six-year-old in the dream, trying to protect Kaylie from God-knows-what. Only this time, she’s not clinging to me. She’s not even letting me help. This time, she’s pushing me away and walking off arm in arm with the monster itself. 

_Let me help,_ I think desperately. _Don’t make me leave you again. Don’t make me abandon you here with them._

Kaylie turns back and responds without a spoken word. _It’s not abandonment if I’m_ telling _you to go._

I can feel the tears start in my eyes as Kaylie climbs the stairs. I bite my lip and watch her small figure ascend to the second floor and out of my sight. The floorboards creak beneath even her slight weight; I can hear them, each one more distant than the last. Something about the creaking scares me. Then a door slams and the house is silent and still.

Marie is still holding my arm. “Come on, James,” she says softly, defeated.

I pull myself together and start putting on my coat. As I peer out the windows to see if it’s still raining, Marie turns away and crouches down. “What the hell…?”

I turn back to her. “Hm?”

She’s picking up something small from the floor. “Oh, my God,” she murmurs as she stands up. 

I lean over her shoulder. “What is it?” 

She holds it out to me, pinched between her fingers. It’s a bundle of short strands of some kind of fiber, pale in color - not platinum blond like someone’s bleached hair, just pure white. It’s soft, almost silky, and it glistens in the light as Marie turns it back and forth between her finger and thumb. “Whose hair is that?” I ask. “It’s a lot lighter than Kaylie’s.” And Marie and I have dark hair. _Who else has been in this house besides us?_  

The answer is obvious, but it doesn’t hit me until Marie spells it out. She looks up at me, her brown eyes wide and confused and scared at the same time. 

“I don’t think it’s hair,” she whispers. “I think…I think it’s _fur._ ”


End file.
